Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[Jeff Kleist]

Because Braveheart is a huge mainstream "man title" and they don't want to start they hype machine and let it get lost in the Christmas shuffle. I'm sure they'll be forthcoming sometime in December on specifics

Keep in mind that street dates do change, and unless there's an actual press release about it giving names dates and places, nothing is set in stone(and sometimes those stones break)

[Esox50]

Jeff, thanks and agreed re street dates. I was just wondering if you guys had any indication that something had changed. Given a roughly 60 day pre-order window, it's quite posible we'll get a "special" announcement in mid-November or so.

I certainly hope that's the case, but sometimes when our favorite movies are involved we get a little

[Dan S.]

Hey Jeff, Thank you for your participation here! I just picked up my 6 Bond Steelbooks at Best Buy this morning and I started thinking about QoS coming out next month and eventually on BD. Is there a way to get a message over to the guys at Sony that many of us would like to get their Bond releases in steelbooks that match up with the ones from MGM? It would be a shame to get the entire collection down the road and have the Sony ones in plastic while the MGM's look special. Thanks!

[Jeff Kleist]

Steelbooks are usually sponsored by a retailer, in this case Best Buy.

You'd be better off writing a snail mail letter to Best Buy telling them how much you like these steelbooks, and that you'd love ones for CR and QOS when that comes out on Blu, and for the future Bonds as well

Be sure to mention that you're more likely to shop at the store that has steelbooks in general, doesn't hurtto encourage them across the board

[aramis109]

Jeff, Bill and sundry-

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...=1#post1246997

It looks like there may be an authoring error on the Revolutions disc on The Ultimate Matrix disc set. I can confirm there is a weird "jump" on my player and apparently many other people are confirming some weird pixelization/macroblocking that isn't in the source.

Can you guys check/confirm/possibly discuss this with Warner? For me on my PS3 it's bearable but for other folks on other players it seems to be a much more significant issue on that timestamp.

Originally Posted by adj

Hey, I'd like to know if there's something wrong with one of my discs. Could someone check out the "Revolutions" film at the 1:45:46 mark (final showdown with Agent Smith and Neo fighting in the building).

Excuse my ignorance regarding videophile terminology, but there are three "funky" frames at this point on my disc. During the first frame, there is a distorted green band of lines containing about a dozen squares of different colors. While the subsequent two frames show a ton of squares, they aren't confined to a band (which disappears) and the differnt colors are gone. Instead, the squares in these two frames are all over the film and tend to outline Smith's and Neo's bodies as well as other objects.

Is this just some kind of encoding error, or is my disc defective? Hardware/connection couldn't cause this sort of thing could it?

I read about people referring to macroblocking earlier in this post. Honestly, I looked at the images on that link and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But what I'm speaking of isn't a subtle thing. I was watching and said aloud, "what was that!" Just wanted to know so I could exchange the set if it's a defect.

I'd appreciate any replies.

Andrew

Originally Posted by DVD FOREVER

hxxp://home.earthlink.net/~jmorg/matrix/Matrix.htm

Andrew- I did notice your post a couple of days ago and I wanted you to know that yes, there is a problem with The Matrix Revolutions and it isn't just a defective disc. There is an encode or replication error and unfortunately the issue did slip thru QC emulation and the check disc phase.

The issue may not have shown up as bad on Aramis109's player which leads me to think he/she might have a PS3. The issue on the PS3 isn't as noticeable because the PS3 is skipping the frames but you can still see the problem in the video. I work in the DVD business and I checked the disc on several Blu-ray players at work and they all have the issue. Your disc isn't the only one with the problem and a few friends of mine also have the same issue.

The more people see this problem and the more people alert Warner Bros. customer service, the greater chance it will be fixed and an exchange program will take place. Just thought I would let you know. I originally posted this problem at High-Def Digest but the more we all know about this the better. It will eventually get back to Warner. I didn't intend my very first post here to be about an issue but what the hell :-)

Go to the link at the top but replace the two x's so it says http. This explains the issue.

DVD FOREVER

[Jeff Kleist]

I'll get a look at it when my copy arrives. Bill did the main review for that one

[aramis109]

Thanks for looking into it!

[neo_reloaded]

To chime in on The Matrix Revolution issue:

I paused the film and went frame-by-frame on the PS3, and Neo's leg jumps from about Smith's chest, to over his head in a single frame. I counted the number of frames in 1:45:45, 1:45:46, and 1:45:47 - both :45 and :47 had 24 frames each, and :46 only had 21. I don't know how the PS3 works in this regard, so I'm not going to say that my frame counting is entirely scientific, but a 3 frame difference is at least intriguing.

Apparently on other players the problematic frames are not skipped, and huge green macroblocks appear. I guess the PS3 somehow identifies these as problem frames and just skips them.

I took a look at my HD DVD copy of the film, and this problem is not present there. The same encode is shared between these two discs, so it's doubtful that the actual assets are bad. I also don't think it's a manufacturing defect, as unreadable data would not be skipped so seamlessly - in my experience, unreadable sectors due to either pressing problems or wear-and-tear result in playback pauses as the drive tries to grab the data. In both cases (PS3 skipping the frames vs. other players playing them with large visual errors), the player seems to have no problem reading the disc - it's just that the data it reads is problematic. My best guess would be some error during the authoring.

[BTBuck1]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

To chime in on The Matrix Revolution issue:

I paused the film and went frame-by-frame on the PS3, and Neo's leg jumps from about Smith's chest, to over his head in a single frame. I counted the number of frames in 1:45:45, 1:45:46, and 1:45:47 - both :45 and :47 had 24 frames each, and :46 only had 21. I don't know how the PS3 works in this regard, so I'm not going to say that my frame counting is entirely scientific, but a 3 frame difference is at least intriguing.

Apparently on other players the problematic frames are not skipped, and huge green macroblocks appear. I guess the PS3 somehow identifies these as problem frames and just skips them.

I took a look at my HD DVD copy of the film, and this problem is not present there. The same encode is shared between these two discs, so it's doubtful that the actual assets are bad. I also don't think it's a manufacturing defect, as unreadable data would not be skipped so seamlessly - in my experience, unreadable sectors due to either pressing problems or wear-and-tear result in playback pauses as the drive tries to grab the data. In both cases (PS3 skipping the frames vs. other players playing them with large visual errors), the player seems to have no problem reading the disc - it's just that the data it reads is problematic. My best guess would be some error during the authoring.

Super-dee-dooperly uncool. GLad I held on to my HD-DUD version I paid $20 for. Between this snafu and the pinner cases, I'm not too happy with WB's BD version.

I'll tripple dip the matrix when they re-encode them AVC high bitrate and throw DTS-HDMA on there....and since that will be never, it will be never.

[*TIMMIE*]

There seem to be several cuts of Austin Powers; International man of mystery. The European cut seem to have several deleted scenes in it. Which cut will be on the US Blu Ray?

[Woody]

Originally Posted by BTBuck1

Super-dee-dooperly uncool. GLad I held on to my HD-DUD version I paid $20 for. Between this snafu and the pinner cases, I'm not too happy with WB's BD version.

I'll tripple dip the matrix when they re-encode them AVC high bitrate and throw DTS-HDMA on there....and since that will be never, it will be never.

I am sure the 3rd movie will be fixed, and a DTS HDMA track will sound exactly the same as the Dolby THD track.

[Jeff Kleist]

The US cut will be on the Blu-ray, but all the deleted scenes will be included

[coolmilo]

Hello Jeff,

I took a look at the release list through Christmas and I am wondering if there will be any more "BIG" announcements soon. Is there a chance that there will be any exciting announcements (such as the Bourne series) or is the release schedule locked in through Christmas?

BTW, I am excited about the titles being released. I was just wondering if we can expect more. This post is not meant as a complaint in any way.

[Jeff Kleist]

Nothing that people don't already know is coming
Bourne will not be coming this year and I don't think that it'll come before next Christmas (in my mind that's very dependant on how Bourne 4 is going whether they go for it or hold it), as it's definately a holiday item

[Mr. Cinema]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Nothing that people don't already know is coming
Bourne will not be coming this year and I don't think that it'll come before next Christmas (in my mind that's very dependant on how Bourne 4 is going whether they go for it or hold it), as it's definately a holiday item

That is extremely disappointing to hear.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by Mr. Cinema

That is extremely disappointing to hear.

I would second your sentiment. I knew it was not going to happen this year, but a was hopping for an early 09 release.

[Woody]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

I would second your sentiment. I knew it was not going to happen this year, but a was hopping for an early 09 release.

+1

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

I would second your sentiment. I knew it was not going to happen this year, but a was hopping for an early 09 release.

On one leg or a pogo stick?

[Braktastic]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

I'll get a look at it when my copy arrives. Bill did the main review for that one

Jeff, thanks for looking into the Matrix Revolution issue as well. It would seem the PS3 masks the problem a bit, but there is an issue consistently, unlike the Bond BDs, it just varies in severity.

Warner Bros. is generally very good about resolving these problems, but they have to know about them first. I hope The Digital Bits will alert the appropriate folks on behalf of the BD community.

Thanks.

[Jeff Kleist]

I'm hoping I'll have it today or tomorrow, it was put on the slow boat for whatever reason. It definately sounds like an error during the mastering process though, which different players are handling in different ways